Island Tourism Employees’ Perceived Importance and Challenges of English Communication

Abstract

In the tourism industry the prominent role of English is inevitable as the communicative tasks involve tourism employees and tourists to cooperate with one another in order to attain successful communication goals. While research on English language use has been conducted upon other fields of tourism, there is a paucity in English language related studies associated specifically with island tourism industry. The present study is established based on the two objectives: (1) to identify the importance of English in performing communicative tasks among island tourism employees and (2) to identify the sources of difficulties encountered by the employees. Data were collected from 59 employees working in island tourism in Perhentian and Redang islands using questionnaire as the instrument. SPSS Version 22 was used to calculate the mean value and standard deviation of each item. Based on the analysis, English language is most important for the employees when enquiring about international tourists’ information and needs and least important to refuse tourists’ offers. In relation to language difficulties, the employees rated the skills to understand international tourists’ foreign accents when they speak English and to use correct English grammar as most difficult as compared to other sources of difficulties in speaking English.